Randomizing exams in Google Forms, Canvas and Moodle
If your students take the exam inside Google Forms, Canvas or Moodle, use that platform’s own shuffle settings. They do a better job than any paper-based tool for online exams.
A tool like ExamShuffle makes a fixed number of versions, say two or four, which several students share. An online platform shuffles each time a student opens the exam, so almost every student gets their own order. It also marks the answers itself, so there is no separate answer key to print or mix up.
Below is how to turn shuffling on in each platform, and the limits their own help pages mention. Settings can differ by version, plan and admin setup, so follow the links and check against what you see.
Google Forms
Forms has two separate settings: one for the order of questions, and one for the order of answers.
To shuffle question order (Google’s help page):
- Open the form and click Settings.
- Expand Presentation.
- Under Form presentation, turn on Shuffle question order.
Google adds a warning here: “If you want your questions to appear in a specific order, you should not shuffle your questions.” A reading passage followed by its questions is an example of a specific order.
To shuffle answer options, set it for each question:
- Click the question.
- Click More in the bottom right.
- Choose Shuffle option order.
This works for multiple choice, checkbox and drop-down questions. Because it is per question, you can leave it off for questions where the options are in a meaningful order, such as dates.
The limit to know about. The same page says: “Questions and answers will only be shuffled once per email address. Make sure each address is entered separately and not sent to a Google Group.” If you send the form to a group address, shuffling may not work as expected.
Canvas
Canvas has two quiz tools, Classic Quizzes and New Quizzes, and they shuffle differently. Some schools turn off the option to create new Classic Quizzes, so check which one you have.
New Quizzes
Instructure’s settings guide describes two switches on the quiz’s Settings tab:
- Shuffle questions. When it is off, “questions will display in the order you designate in the quiz.”
- Shuffle answers. This applies “for multiple choice, multiple answer, and matching quiz questions.”
The guide notes two limits:
- Shuffling answers “does not guarantee the order is displayed differently to every student.” A question with three options only has six possible orders, so in a class of 30 many students will see the same one.
- Questions added from an item bank as a group “will continue to be randomized within that group whether this setting is turned on or off.” So turning off Shuffle questions won’t fix the order of grouped questions.
Classic Quizzes
In the quiz details there is a Shuffle Answers checkbox (quiz options guide). It applies to the whole quiz, not one question at a time.
There is no simple switch for question order. Instead, you put questions in a question group (question group guide). Be careful: a question group can also pick a random subset of its questions for each student. If everyone must answer every question, set the group to use all of them.
Instructure’s advice: “If you need your questions to appear in a specific order, do not place quiz questions inside a question group.”
Moodle
Moodle also separates question order from answer order.
To shuffle question order, open the quiz’s editing page and tick Shuffle at the top (Moodle’s guide to building a quiz). If your quiz has sections, each section has its own Shuffle box. You can shuffle one section and keep another in a fixed order, which is useful for a reading passage with its own questions.
To shuffle answer options, two settings must both be on:
- The quiz-level setting to shuffle within questions.
- The shuffle setting on each individual question (multiple choice question docs).
Moodle’s matching question docs state that the quiz setting “must be ‘Yes’… AND the shuffle question box must be check on the individual question.” If your answers aren’t shuffling, one of these two is usually off.
Where the quiz-level setting appears has changed between Moodle versions, so look for it in your own quiz settings rather than relying on screenshots.
One thing all three have in common
All three let you shuffle question order without shuffling the answer options. That matters because shuffling answer options has less research behind it: at least one study suggests it can change how hard a question is. For a high-stakes exam, shuffling questions only is the cautious choice.
Quick comparison
| Question order | Answer order | |
|---|---|---|
| Google Forms | One setting for the whole form | Set per question |
| Canvas New Quizzes | One switch for the quiz | One switch for the quiz |
| Canvas Classic Quizzes | Put questions in a question group | One checkbox for the quiz |
| Moodle | Set per section | Quiz setting plus a setting on each question |
When a paper tool makes sense
ExamShuffle is for paper exams: a supervised room without devices, an exam written in Word that will be printed, or a school where the online platform is only used for grades. If your exam runs inside Google Forms, Canvas or Moodle, use the platform’s own settings.
If you do need paper versions, making versions in Word explains the manual method.